Calgary student has been studying decibel levels in hand dryers since age nine - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-student-nora-keegan-hand-dyer-research-decibel-1.5185853 <comment><USER2> My kids get nervous as soon as they even see a hand dryer. They start crying when it's on. I thought they were exaggerating, it never occurred to me that sound levels for kids are different because they are smaller (though it makes complete sense). That, coupled with higher sensitivity to noise and more delicate hearing canals of youngsters kind of make me feel like a bad parent for trying to let them use the dryers anyway (Even though I have long since given up). This kids research proves my kids right, and I am not easily convinced ;) Great accomplishment for I should listen to my kids.

Already an impressive combination of curiosity and perseverance to get a scientific paper published for any non-academic, let alone a 13 year old!!

edit: The absolute worst things are these [https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand- dryers/tap-hand-dryers](https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand-dryers/tap-hand- dryers), my kids just plain refuse to wash their hands out of fear of accidentally triggering the dryer

<comment><USER3> _> > The absolute worst things are these [https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand- dryers/tap-hand-dryers](https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand-dryers/tap-hand- dryers), my kids just plain refuse to wash their hands out of fear of accidentally triggering the dryer_

Wow, I was recently in an airport bathroom where a young boy absolutely refused to wash his hands. His father was extremely patient and said that he needed to wash his hands. The boy was near tears saying that they would miss their plane. It was all a really strange and illogical situation. Until I read your sentence. I don't know if this is why the boy wouldn't wash his hands, but it makes me realize that sometimes kids have reasons for what they say or do, even if they can't explain it. Reminds me of the hand licking incident: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18842009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18842009)

I thought I had read all about the hand licking incident and learned not to make presumptions about kids. Today, I realize that the lesson hasn't really been ingrained into me yet.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, thanks for sharing that link. I had a ton of weird tics as a kid which could easily be traced back to the large amounts of prescribed amphetamines I was forced to take under threat of punishment. The solution to the tics was... more punishment.

It took me years to realize things such as, the reason I would chew on my shirt color all day even though I would routinely get sent to the principal's office and publicly embarrased by teachers or beaten at home was just because my jaw would get very tense and chewing motions relaxed it, and my mouth was the Sarah Desert and sucking on the fabric pulled moisture into my mouth.

<comment><USER5> You too!? I thought I was the only one!

My shirts would be sopping wet in the front and would all have tooth holes from my chewing them, I'd go through a shirt a week nearly.

I wasn't on any meds but my teacher at the time would dole out punishments regularly to me in class. I've put 2 and 2 together before, but I never knew I wasn't alone in this behaviour! Thanks for commenting, this really helped me.

<comment><USER4> All those poor buttons. And then I come to find out that one popular tip for reducing dry mouth in dry environments is literally _sucking on a button_.

I wonder how common it really is in young children. Certainly seemed I was the only one dealing with it at several different schools. Is it too late to form a club?

Similarly, I had issues with scratching my nose in public, nail-biting, hair- pulling, picking at scabs, sucking my thumb at night... punished and beaten all the time for it, and some particularly nasty teachers would try to make a public example... come to find out in my adulthood that I have a literal disorder, body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) syndrome, which is related to OCD and bipolar disorder and ADHD which I also deal with, and heavily exacerbated and permanently worsened by my forced exposure to intense medication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My personal least favorites are the Excel dryers, which seem to be becoming quite common. They may be reasonably loud when your hands aren't beneath them, but they become unreasonably loud when you put your hands in the air stream and start rubbing them together. I find that you get white-ish noise/half- whistling noises at an absolutely miserable level.

Many years ago, I actually had a desk in an office that was maybe 10-15 meters from a nearby Excel hand dryer, separated by two doors. I hated it with a passion. Every time somebody dried their hands, I'd hear it. I left that job for a lot of reasons, and the hand dryer wasn't exactly one of them, but I wasn't sad to be rid of it.

And I'm not 9. I'm 35. I find that I have pretty good hearing, at least as compared to my partner.

What gets a little weird is that since leaving software and making a career change to woodworking, I've gotten more sensitive to loud noise. I used to take the subway to work like many other people. Now, I find that the noise of the train is too loud.

I'm religious about wearing hearing protection in the shop. I don't know if my hearing has gotten objectively better, or if I'm just more aware of loud noise than I used to be. It'd be hard to do a study on that without a time machine though.

<comment><USER7> I'm interested to hear about your switch from software to woodworking. How did you get started? Do you make money by building pieces on commission? Are you glad you made the switch?

<comment><USER6> I got started taking a basic hand tools class and followed that with other evening and week-long classes. I'm actually not somebody who's been in the shop since they could walk; I'm pretty late to the trade.

At the moment it's like that old joke: "What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend? ... Homeless." I do make some money on commission work, but not enough to cover my living expenses. What I do make I'm largely investing back into the business, which I just started. This is probably fewer tools than you might think; I pay for annual access to the bigger tools I don't have, and I have a pretty decent selection of the moderate-sized tools that I got for pretty short money (band saw, drill press, and table saw. All good tools, total: <500 USD).

Mostly it's stuff like a camera and lights to shoot my work, a logo, and the other sorts of things that separate a hobby from a business. A better website [0] is on the list as well, but never having been a web developer, my partner and I are likely going to use squarespace or something similar.

Am I glad I made the switch? Emphatically yes. I love the woodworking aspect. I'm happy to report that my partner is helping with the business-y things. Also: she's a _way_ better photographer than I am. Any of the pictures on my existing website that look good are probably hers; the crappy ones are mine (and need to be re-shot around the time we get around to settling on a logo and commit to getting a real website up).

TL;DR:

I'm lucky to be married to the world's most supportive partner.

[0] [http://longwalkwoodworking.com](http://longwalkwoodworking.com) <\- HTML like it's 1998, CSS lifted pretty much straight from the "68 bytes of CSS..." article posted here a while ago. There really do need to be pictures on the home page, a contact page, an about page, etc. Hosted on github pages, no Jekyll, etc. I threw something up so that I could put a URL on business cards and have it go to something.

<comment><USER7> Really great looking stuff. How long did it take to get your dovetails perfected?

<comment><USER6> Thanks! I'm still working on getting the dovetails perfected. Like a lot of things, they require practice. While I usually get them right, if I haven't cut any in a while, they often come out a little rough until I get my hands used to making the right motions again.

Really perfecting them would mean getting them both accurate and _fast_. I definitely need to cut a few more to get to that stage, and do it regularly to keep it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Misread it as "hair dryer" at first, but the principle is similar...

Fans are loud, especially small powerful ones. There's plenty of other comments here complaining about the Dysons, and I agree; and I also much prefer the older ones (with a heater), which seem to have a far slower fan and a deeper note. That said, I find towels/paper most effective for drying.

But if insisting on air drying, perhaps a design with the blower elsewhere (maybe centralised, like a vacuum --- another fanned device that's also very loud), a local heater, and slower air flow would be more ideal.

<comment><USER9> A few days ago I stood before the hand dryer in my office bathroom (or at least I think it was a hand dryer, as it was mounted waist high to the left of a sink) and puzzled at its labeling. I even took a picture:

[https://ibb.co/mCNdGdh](https://ibb.co/mCNdGdh)

There's no shower anywhere nearby, but this object which I consider to be obviously a hand dryer is labeled "hair dryer". Surely the people who make these know what they're for...

And I agree, a large tank of compressed air with an on-demand heater on the human end would be pretty nice.

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, I've seen (and used) those in gyms and bike lockers at offices as a hair dryer. It's possible the person/company who bought it and installed it did not know what they were buying.

I don't know that there's really any difference between this and a hand dryer, but I've certainly used them as hair dryers too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most of us outgrow and then forget how cool water makes small children shiver, hunger and sun makes them weak, bitter vegetables are overpowering, sitting on grass without pants is painful, so is affection, unpolished wooden benches, men's stubble etc.

<comment><USER12> > men's stubble

One of my great joys in life is how much my daughter loves my stubble. She grabs my face with both her hands and declares "Sooooo scratchy!" and then squeals and laughs when I nuzzle her cheek with mine and pretend to be a horse. From ~3 yrs old, now going on 10.

My heart will definitely break a notch if the day ever comes she outgrows that!

<comment><USER13> She may outgrow it, but she'll probably never forget it.

I'm a guy, but I recall as a kid feeling my dad's stubble when I gave him a hug as a child, when he came home from work, smelling of sweat and tar (he worked as a road maintenance worker - a very hard job, especially in the summertime in California).

He passed away 14 years ago, and I'm turning 46 in a couple days; how time passes...

<comment><USER14> Same here. My strongest sense memories of my dad are the feel of his shirt against my cheek when I'd run up to hug him when he got home from work, the feel of the callouses on his fingers, and the stubble on his cheek under my hand.

I remember those things more often than I do the sight of his face, or the sound of his voice, or the smell of his cologne. By far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's odd that this article popped up, as I have been recently thinking about noise pollution when walking my dog around the outside of my neighborhood. My unscientific guess is that 50% of vehicles that pass by are significantly louder than they ought to be, and my further guess is that at least half of those vehicles are louder because the driver desires it. In the grand scheme of the world's problems it is probably very low on the list - but I'm guessing it negatively affects people, animals and insects more than you would expect. Would it be so difficult for noise pollution to be regulated like emissions (in fact, couldn't it be done in the emissions process most states in the USA perform?)

<comment><USER16> > at least half of those vehicles are louder because the driver desires it

Motor cycles are the worst for this. It's not rare to have whole neighborhoods woken up because one of those passes through.

<comment><USER17> There is a reason for this. When car drivers stop pulling out in front of motorcyclists, motorcyclists will stop fitting loud exhausts.

<comment><USER18> I ride and do "feel" the sentiment that loud pipes might help in some situations. But here's a rider-centric article that helps address the situation _and_ provide some actionable advice.

[https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud- pipes...](https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes-save- lives)

<comment><USER16> Thanks, that article makes lots of good sense. I see more and more riders (on relatively quiet bikes) drive with high visibility gear, especially on the highway, which is great.

But those are rarely the 'loud' types, they're just people using their bikes as transport rather than as an attention seeking device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if anyone has considered reverberation in these measurements. It's going to make the noise louder than it would otherwise be.

Basically, the loudness of a sound hitting your ear is a combination of multiple factors:

1\. How loud the sound source is.

2\. How close your ear is to it.

3\. How much it reverberates or dissipates.

Imagine if a hand dryer were installed outdoors in an open field. Sound would emanate from the dryer, then wander off never to return.

Now imagine a hand dryer in a room with carpet and some soft furniture like a couch. Sound would emanate from the dryer, and some of it would hit surfaces that absorb it. But some of the sound would also hit reflective surfaces like walls or glass, and that reflected sound could come back to your ear and increase the total noise level.

Now consider what a bathroom is like. For ease of cleaning, it's entirely hard surfaces. Concrete, porcelain, tile, metal, etc. These absorb almost no sound. And bathrooms are typically pretty small rooms. It's basically the worst case for taking an already-loud thing and making nearly all the noise reach your ear.

<comment><USER20> I refuse to use the Dyson at work for precisely this reason, and I try to not be there when other people do - our bathroom is a rather small confined and reflective place.

<comment><USER21> I find that Dyson makes some of the quieter hand dryers I've encountered, although maybe that's because they tend to be in larger restrooms. Starbucks really hurts my ears with much older style hand dryers in their single- occupancy restroom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hand dryers can also spread airborne bacteria onto your hands. Perhaps modern dryers include intake filters to address this issue, but the filter would need replaced on a regular schedule, which is probably not a realistic expectation for most restroom facilities.

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror- of-...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot- air-hand-dryer-2018051113823)

<comment><USER23> Dyson models do have HEPA filters on the air intakes.

<comment><USER24> Just don't touch the basin area in the bottom!

<comment><USER19> Just don't touch is a tall order with Dyson hand dryers. They are fundamentally hard to use correctly because of tight clearances.

The way they work is based on the idea of a narrow stream of air that gets water off your hands better. But for the stream to remain narrow and not dissipate, you have to get your hands close to the equipment. It's based on almost but not quite touching it.

Positioning your hands in a careful and controlled manner is, ergonomically speaking, an uphill battle. So on average, it won't happen often.

In other words, Dyson hand dryers kind of trap you into accidentally touching the part you don't want to touch.

Worse, the same applies to all the people who used the hand dryer before you. It's a very reasonable bet that the surface where the air comes out has been touched by someone who didn't use soap when they washed their hands.

<comment><USER23> I can't say I've ever experienced this issue with the air blades. They seem easy to use them without touching any part of the hand dryer. I'm surprised that people have trouble with this!

<comment><USER25> Are you some kind of superhuman? Even if you try really hard and aim precisely, as soon as the air turns on your hands get pushed to one side because the pressure is not exactly the same in both sides.

<comment><USER23> Weird... maybe they are different where you are? Older models, or not installed/adjusted correctly?

I use these all the time (they're pretty much everywhere in the U.K.) and haven't experienced this unbalanced pressure issue. They always seem pretty much equal pressure on each side to me.

<comment><USER26> Their official usage video shows touching of the sides and that person doesn't appear to have particularly large hands either.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExuvJkZ61Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExuvJkZ61Cg)

With large hands, there's an extra degree of difficulty to avoid touching the sides and the bottom. It still leaves you with wet wrists and damp fingers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For what it's worth, the two models singled out in the article are the MOST common at restaurants near me new enough to have recently reno'd their bathrooms. I don't know if they're cheap, or if they're "fancy" so they're trendy, or if it's some weird American thing about having the SUV of hand dryers, but the Xcelerator and Dyson things are _endemic_. My 6yo has been complaining about them for years and not once did I ever tell him he was wrong; in fact I've taken to just walking back to my table with wet hands and drying them off with a napkin if they're going to be serving me the shit sandwich of hearing damage for washing my hands.

I think the simplest solution would be for municipalities' health departments to outlaw them, or at least set VERY conservative noise limits.

</comment><comment><USER28> I hate air dryers perhaps slightly too vehemently. I think it would be a net positive even if they were simply removed from everywhere without replacement.

I'm not sure why they're so common given that they seem to only make things worse.

<comment><USER23> But what are the alternatives?

\- Paper towels? Environmentally unsound.

\- Washable towel on a continuous roller/spindle thing? Common in past decades, now pretty rare. Requires regular servicing. Expensive? [1]

\- Don't offer hand drying at all? Uncomfortable especially in cold climates. Might discourage people from washing their hands at all.

While I agree they need to be quieter, Hand dryers are still the best technology we have right now.

[1] The British Library still uses these in their washrooms, presumably because of noise concerns with hand dryers.

<comment><USER29> Paper towels are recyclable and made out of recycled paper, at least. They are the most hygienic solution out there.

I still see the towel rolls around, they're a good option as well. Maintenance for (esp. public) toilets is never not going to be a thing, but it does require a bit more infrastructure to maintain (= washing out etc). But there's companies that will take care of that.

Not offering hand drying is the worst; drying your hands is arguably even more important than washing them when it comes to hygiene.

Anyway beyond that, fixing the hand dryers is also an option. Use larger but slower rotating fans. Dyson's machines have the problem that they have relatively small, high-speed motors.

<comment><USER30> They're not recyclable. If they're made from recycled paper, their fibres will be too short, like tissue paper or toilet roll.

On top of that, people might be using it to wipe _anything_ , which could potentially ruin the rest of the recycling.

If you're putting any of that into your recycling, you're doing it wrong.

Also, do not recycle any paper/cardboard with grease or food contamination, especially pizza boxes with grease on, they will also ruin a recycling run.

<comment><USER31> > If you're putting any of that into your recycling, you're doing it wrong.

Hence the main problem with recycling. No reasonable person can know all the rules about plastics, what kinds of papers, etc. Why can't sorters sort it all out? Because nobody knows what to pre-sort.

<comment><USER32> Oh, come on. If you're capable of navigating normal life, you're capable of recycling. What you're saying is that you won't spend five minutes absorbing a one page document.

Recology has probably the most complicated arrangement I've had, and, well, this is not exactly rocket surgery:

[https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/what-goes- wh...](https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/what-goes-where/)

<comment><USER33> Nice. What puzzles me is fast-food places with 3 bins (compost, recycling, trash) with these pictures on each -- when instead the pictures should be of the actual containers/wrappers that the restaurant uses. Wouldn't that be more helpful?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I rather use my own t-shirt to dry my hands than use a hand dryer. It should have been years since I last used one. I hate it since a child.

Automated paper towels dispensers should be the rule, not some fancy air blade thingy.

If I'm healthy, it is also good for the environment.

I never liked hand dryers both because of noise and the risks of spreading germs. I'd only use them on a brand new restroom, then never any more.

<comment><USER35> I've always used my clothes over an air hand dryer. You know they have to be nasty because of all the water blown off hands that are likely only marginally cleaner than before washing, and that nastiness gets aerosolized and spread around the entire bathroom. The front and sides of my pants to wick enough water away so I can use my hands while they air dry the rest of the way: problem solved.

<comment><USER36> I'm most concerned with touching the handle/door with a bare hand. Too many people don't properly (or worse, at all) wash their hands after using a restroom. Therefore, I stick with the paper-towel grab.

The step-handle is a nice solution to this, sometimes.

<comment><USER37> I've never understood why more restroom doors don't open out. It's empirically better if you can just push the door open with an elbow.

<comment><USER38> It should be an international standard that: * rest rooms have never-empty paper towels * rest room doors have a trash can next to them

or simply restrooms with no doors like most airports

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't usually wish cartoonish misfortune on anybody, but I make an exception for the person who decided that the infant changing table should be installed right next to the Dyson air dryer in a certain popular retail store.

That person should have a piano dropped on them.

It's awesome that this young scientist decided to investigate and call attention to this issue, and even better that she's resolved to help come up with solutions!

<comment><USER40> Not to mention studies showing that hand dryers, with the Dyson models leading the pack, do an excellent job of distributing bacteria over a large area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't mind them in general. Some of the new high speed ones are absolutely horrendous in this regard. Literally hurts my ears even a couple meters away

I'll rather walk out with dripping hands

<comment><USER42> I feel the same. I dry my hands on my trousers and wear headphones in the toilets to avoid the blast of white (?) noise from other users of the high- speed dryers at work.

It wouldn't surprise me if the UK regulations on these devices also only measure the noise levels without hands in the airflow... there's no way these are legal when they are actually in use.

<comment><USER43> Don't know why you are being downvoted, but at my gym I go through the same situation. Whenever I go into the change room/washroom, I go to the locker furthest from the dryer, meters away from it. It doesn't really matter since every time someone activates it, it sounds as if it blowing right next to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> My daughter refuses to use the big, tank less toilets that you find in public restrooms because she's scared of them. Never thought the noise level could be an issue in the origin of her fear but these things are loud when they go off and most are now motion activated so they trigger as soon as you get up.

This all makes more sense now, thanks to this kid for this, I've never realized how noise was different for kids.

<comment><USER45> The motion activated ones go off when you move a little, not when you stand up. I've had them go off twice while trying to go, then not go off when he was finally done. It is not pleasant to have a toilet flush under you.

<comment><USER46> If there is anything to hang it from, a long strip of toilet tissue, hung down in front of the sensor eye, generally prevents this effect of premature flushing.

<comment><USER47> This is a good tip thanks!

I'm sensitive to loud noises and some public bathrooms have really, really, really loud and honestly just flat out aggressive toilets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I recommend a read of [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand- dryers-...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper- towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade) which I found really interesting before committing to the anti hand dryer syndicate.

</comment><comment><USER49> Kudos to the great research.

My kids hate the Dyson hand dryers. These things are incredibly loud.

<comment> saw-lau My son (autistic and generally sensitive to noise) point-blank refuses to go into public toilets/restrooms just in case one goes off. :-(

<comment><USER50> I'm in exactly the same boat. To be honest, I've started to get twitchy whenever anyone uses one when he's NOT around, I'm that used to watching out for them.

Hand dryers. Leaf blowers. Hair dryers. Hoovers.

But bowling alleys and swimming pools are fine. I really want to figure out the spectrum of noise that hurts.

<comment><USER47> I've been sensitive to loud noises (still can't drive with my windows down) since I was a kid, and I've been diagnosed by a doctor to be on the spectrum (albeit high functioning) for various other reasons as well.

It's obviously different for everyone, but for me it comes down to a few things:

* Generally the higher pitch noises are way worse then a low deep "growl"

* Sudden, high decibel noises, especially if they're unexpected are BAD

* High decibel repetitive noises (ever have only one window open in your car on the highway and hear a WOMPH WOMPH WOMPH sound?) are unbearable.

* Restaurant buzzers, alarms, etc. Even the alarms coming from inside McDonalds while I'm in the drive through make me uncomfortable/

* Anything shrilly, no matter the decibel.

Sounds that are lower pitch, and continuous are much easier to get used to. The AC kicking on is uncomfortable, but after ~30 seconds the fan noise doesn't bother me.

For me public places have an "ambient sound" that seems to get filtered out okay. Mostly only the occasional small child skrill bothers me. I also have social anxiety so I'll get uncomfortable anyway however.

\----

This seems to align with your observation that bowling alleys/swimming pools being okay. Most of the sounds are lower pitch, continuous, and most of the sudden noises are expected (kids splashing, bowling ball rolling, etc.)

The biggest difference is the decibel level though. Hand dryers. Leaf blowers. Hair dryers. Hoovers, are all LOUD.

Imagine your parents SCREAMING AS LOUD AS THEY CAN AT YOU. That's how those feel.

\---

I have a feeling my observations will apply to most people on the spectrum, but you'd have to multiply it by 10x/100x depending on the severity of the individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's clear to me that whatever costs savings there are in using these electric dryers is not worth it considering A) they aren't even sanitary which defeats their entire purpose and B) they are dangerous to childrens ears.

We really should just mandate that public restrooms use Cloth Roll Towel Systems for hand drying. It's economical in the long run, not a giant waste of resources, and it is proven to be more sanitary than paper hand towels!

<comment><USER52> I like the paper towel because I then have something to cleanly open the door with too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> My daughter is deaf in one ear, so cannot localize sound nor can she sense distance. There are two things that absolutely terrorize her: fireworks and air dryers.

</comment><comment><USER54> The Dyson airblade is the fucking worst. In addition to apparently being one of the louder ones, it's also one of the most unhygienic. It blows the germs off of your hands and onto your face. You should avoid them like the actual plague.

<comment><USER55> There is no need for cursing on HN. Yes, the older models of Dyson Airblade were noisy, but they have addressed this in the latest model Dyson Airblade V HU02 which is significantly quieter.

Also, why are germs on your hands _after_ washing them? Surely you used soap which killed 99.9% of germs and given that the Dyson Airblade V blows air downward, you would need to contort yourself to put your face _below_ your hands ...

<comment><USER56> You seem a little too upset because someone used a bad word.

<comment><USER57> No, we try to maintain better standards of dialogue here, and there is rarely a need to curse unless it's a quote from someone/something else.

<comment><USER58> I checked the guidelines and there is nothing against swearing or "standards of dialogue". FWIW swearing is within my standards of dialogue.

<comment><USER59> This seems to be a funny problem among some people, which also censor and beep each swear word in videos on YouTube or anywhere else. Seems to be some anticipatory obedience that is deeply embedded in some cultures/people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Sadly it's because manufacturers deliberately make them loud to make it seem like they're doing their job more. It's the same with many garden tools. Lawnmowers, leaf blowers and hedge trimmers can be made very quiet but they're deliberately made loud to make it feel like they're doing their job more.

<comment><USER61> I have very hard time to believe this. It can't be helpful to drive people away -- at least I don't use any hard driers anymore because of their noise levels.

<comment><USER60> I'd love for it not to be true and it's not like I have any proof

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Yes! This is so awesome to see! And it has nothing to do with the researcher being 13. We are constantly bombarded with loud noises (don't get me started on motorcycles and construction noise) that do long-term damage to our ears. I hope that one day we can regulate these noises in public spaces. Today it starts with study.

<comment><USER63> Don't even get me started on leaf blowers and lawn edgers for totally unnecessary landscaping

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Occasionally I'll check on how loud something is with my smartphone, and i'm always amazed at how loud some everyday things can get... especially when you factor in enclosed spaces.

</comment><comment><USER65> So if I'm interpreting this right, solution 1, use towels for your kids if you can and solution 2, if there are no towels, hold your kid up and away so they are above the exit point of the air.

<comment> em-bee i just let my hands dry naturally, and teach kids to do the same. as long as it's not freezing cold outside they will dry soon enough. it's the most environmental friendly too.

<comment><USER21> So you're the guy who gets the bathroom door handle wet, causing me to use twice the resources to wash my hands again, plus extra paper towels if available to dry off the handle.

<comment> em-bee nope, see my other replies, not touching the door handle with wet hands. if there is no way to get out without touching the handle i'll dry off first. i just won't if i know i can get away with out touching anything for a while

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> This was actually very "eye opening." I too used to be very sensitive to dryers in general but had since forgotten how painful they can be

</comment><comment><USER67> This is so heartening to read about - and its easy to get started - May be I can 'encourage' my child to do a replication study :)

</comment><comment><USER68> How valid is it to make a sound measurement in direct flow of air? I am not surprised that blowing air directly in to sound measurement device causes high reading, but is the tool designed for that. Isn't it the same as saying that pressure washer causes x decibels of noise when directed in to ear? Both will probably be damaging or unpleasant.

<comment><USER69> She measured sound levels at the ear, not in the airflow. She specifically mentions children being shorter and likely to stand closer to the noise source, and so made readings at multiple distances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Interesting, I have actually noticed that some hand dryers are uncomfortably loud, especially the "special" high powered ones. Combine that with the struggle trying to activate the dryer, and keeping it activated while trying NOT to touch the surfaces, I can understand why some kids seemingly does not like them.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've been avoiding hand dryers for years now. Mostly it's because a germaphobe friend pointed out years ago that germs are being blown onto your hand.

But after reading this I think my subconscious hates the noise it makes on my over-sensitive hearing.

</comment><comment><USER71> The paper she published is at [https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz046](https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz046)

It's behind a paywall, but Sci-Hub works very nicely with a DOI…

<comment><USER33> Wow: "Several Dyson Airblade models were also very loud, including the single loudest measurement of 121 dBA"

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I damaged my right ear-drum on a short-haul flight 20 years ago. I find hand- dryers almost painfully loud, and they rattle that ear-drum in an unpleasant way. Have often thought of doing dB measurements. Way to go, kid!

</comment><comment><USER73> I can't stand anything past about 80db and I absolutely hate these things. Worst part is that there's no way to turn them off once they've been activated.

<comment><USER74> I would never consider using one of these. The annoying thing is when someone else walks into the bathroom and turns it on. Same for the disturbing, toxic – scented hand soap that is found in most bathrooms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Paper towels every time

</comment><comment><USER76> I regularly wear hearing protection when I visit the bigger city, and when I'm on public transit; even as an adult.

<comment><USER77> Out of interest, do you have a high sensitivity to noise around you?

I don't live in a particularly big city and when I visit bigger ones I do feel they are noisy. But not noisy enough to wear protection. I do wear protection when I'm on my motorcycle or at a concert or festival.

<comment><USER76> I can get by without protection, and it's not as though it particularly hurts; but I prefer things quieter, and it improves my mood. I often also wear it when I am working in an office environment with loud HVAC, also improves my mood.

I don't really know what would qualify as high sensitivity.

<comment><USER78> I also wear earplugs and they do improve my mood and ability to stay focused.

I remember that my father did the same when I was a kid. At that point I laughed, now I understand. I'm guessing sensitive ears run in the family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Good on her for staying focused on the problem.

</comment><comment><USER80> 110 dB is 10 times louder than 100 dB.

</comment><comment><USER81> where's the data?

</comment><comment><USER82> The highest decibel things my kids are exposed to is themselves.

<comment><USER83> I have loud children, but they don't actually reach 110dB. I mean, YMMV, but I'd notice if there was something literally as loud as a rock concern in my basement or backyard.

<comment><USER84> Sure they do. I did a quick search and 110-130dB comes up on every result.

It's all about where you measure from, due to the inverse square law. For measuring things such as speakers for product specs, the standard is to measure from one meter away. But for rock concerts and hand dryers, you measure from the typical listening position.

I think you are considering your typical listening position for your child differently from the search results I found. If you were giving your kid a kiss goodnight and they screamed, it would be louder than if you were in the audience of a rock concert (but not louder than if you were kissing the concert speakers).

Every time you double the distance between the source and the meter, the meter reads 6dB lower.

<comment><USER85> Minor factoid: While that's true in the limiting case (far away) for rock concerts, it's common to use line arrays which fall -3 dB when you double your distance, as long as you're within a certain range. Within this range they follow inverse rather than inverse square.

<comment><USER86> Is that a similar effect to antenna arrays?

<comment><USER87> It is most similar to the effect of electrostatic charges. The effect of a point charge is the inverse square of distance, the effect of a line charge is the inverse of distance, and the effect of an infinite plane has no relation to distance.

<comment><USER86> Ok thanks that is a useful mental model

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I hate clickbait titles like this where there is no current age listed for comparison to the age referenced. Is the student 18 or 9.5? The time scale matters.

This reminds me of how Apple notoriously omits axis values during presentations just to make prettier-looking graphs.

<comment><USER89> > And the researcher, _13-year-old Nora Keegan_ , has been studying the issue > since she was nine years old.</comment></comment>


SEO Tips for your Django Site - <AUTHOR> http://mitchfournier.com/2011/03/25/7-seo-tips-for-your-django-site/

<comment><USER2> Not _necessarily_ Django-specific, but nice article nonetheless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I actually had "(or any dynamic site)" in the title, but it was too clunky so I removed it right before posting last night. Thanks yuvadam.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the upvotes, comments, retweets and visits everyone. It's been a very exciting day on HN for me!</comment>


Pirate site with No Traffic attracts 49m bogus DMCA notices - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-site-with-no-traffic-attracts-49m-mainly-bogus-dmca-notices-170219/ <comment><USER2> > Instead of scanning the site and sending an accurate takedown notice to > Google, APDIF tries to guess the URLs where MP3Toys stores its content.

So, they commit a federal crime, then (when they send the DMCA notice)?

<comment><USER3> The courts have ruled that unauthorized directory traversal is illegal. The case against weev already proved that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can't they now be sued for invalid DMCA's? It's perjury to lie about those things I believe. One probably shouldn't fully automate something that perjures you if it's wrong.

<comment><USER5> Sadly the law is set up so that total negligence is okay. As long as you don't _specifically know_ it's invalid, you can send out all the DMCAs you want.

<comment><USER6> B-b-b-but I didn't know. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This smells like it's designed to maximize numbers that get reported back to APDIF's members as "number of pirates shut down" instead of actually preventing infringement.

Also, people have gone over the perjury stuff, but isn't there some kind of ground that encompasses flooding somebody with groundless legal demands/notices like this? I'm not sure tortious interference or abuse of process would apply, but the general principle seems to be around in various forms.

</comment><comment><USER8> So if I understand this story correctly, the .xyz site robots have baited APDIF robots into filing complaints to googles robots which in turn block .xyz sites URLs? For what purpose? Is is just to promote their site? Or is it so that .xyz can now sue Google for removing their URLS without doing their due diligence based on future losses? Very interesting concept, might this be an early example of machine warfare?

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of (web) spider traps! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_trap)

If it's an extension of this idea, then it's been around for a while already (close to 20 years?)

<comment><USER10> while I understand what you meant, it's kind of funny that "web spider" could refer to both of them!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is amazing.

tl;dr APDIF guesses the URL for the infringing content, mp3toys.xyz auto- generates a page with different infringing content as soon as the new URL accesses that route, new URL gets indexed by google in the DMCA takedown notice.

if only they could also monetize the fake DMCA requests as well

</comment><comment><USER12> Did someone with knowledge of APDIF's practices make this site to exploit a weakness in their automation? That would be precious.

<comment><USER13> More likely it's a site used for seo spam. You see similar auto-generated sites for Windows error messages advertising "registry cleaner" programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a fascinating example of frivolous use of takedown requests. Presumably it is prohibited to make a takedown request on something upon which you do not own copyright? Can this be contested in any way?

<comment><USER15> By the person who has had material wrongfully taken down, yes. But these fake takedowns dont result in material actually being taken down. So no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This hits close to home. I worked on a music blog and we got thousands of bogus DMCA takedowns. You basically have zero recourse from the SEO punishment.

</comment><comment><USER17> How can a Brazilian organisation send a DMCA request in the first place? Unless I missed that DMCA has somehow been elevated to international law.

<comment><USER7> It's been a while since I read up on this, but I believe that under the Berne Convention, foreign copyrights of signatories are entitled to the same protections that each signatory provides to domestic copyrights. In that case, the applicability depends on whether the recipient, not the copyright owner, is subject to US jurisdiction.</comment></comment>


The Sewing Machine Patent Wars (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1240849478.shtml

<comment><USER2> These blogs describe Howe as an NPE/patent troll, but there's a big difference between a guy that invents something, tries to market it, and then sues people who build off of his invention (fixing the flaws), and a modern day patent troll who collects a bunch of patents and just waits for someone to accidentally infringe.

<comment><USER3> I think the idea that all NPEs are trolls, which seems to be very common, is erroneous and unfortunate. It is probably true that all trolls are NPEs; it is easy to create an NPE, and there is considerable incentive to do so for the purpose of trolling, as it prevents the troll itself from being meaningfully sue-able (since it has no assets).

But at least in my opinion, being an NPE is not by any means all there is to being a troll. I think trolling primarily involves filing infringement suits without clear evidence that the defendant is actually infringing; the worst trolls are so cynical as not to even care. Suing end users rather than manufacturers is also trolling behavior.

The fact that we're swimming in low-quality patents is also part of the problem in that it makes trolling attractive and accessible. The use of such patents is another mark of trolling.

It's perfectly possible to be an NPE and enforce one's patents without doing any of those things.

<comment><USER4>
        The fact that we're swimming in low-quality patents is also part of the problem

Another part of the problem is the lack of education about the patent system in the general public. The number of rediculous assertions I've seen which are patently (heh) false is astounding. A recent example was a patent awarded to Amazon; the media reporting would have you think they got a patent for taking a photo of something in front of a white background. While that does form part of the claims, the actual details are extremely narrow, and the patent is almost worthless to Amazon.

Then there's the frequently brought up "Apple got a patent for rounded corners on a phone! The patent system has gone MAD!". This was a design patent, intended to stop others making phones that look like Apple's (both other big players like Samsung and HTC as well as Chinese knockoff manufacturers). Design patents are very different from standard patents; they're closer to copyright for physical things than patents.

These are just examples of the tip of the iceburg of ignorance I see every day when people discuss the patent system.

As for lots of "low-quality patents", I disagree that is actually true. It's just the bad ones that get reported on most frequently and loudly; it's the reason more people are scared of flying even though they have a much higher chance of dying on the car trip to the airport. The USPTO and other patent offices around the world are very good at rejecting things which don't (legally) deserve a patent. Generaly examiners are quite familliar with the state of the art of the technologies they examine and know when something is well known or an obvious improvement over the prior art. Sometimes they have to allow something that seems obvious because they have no legal grounds to reject it.

<comment><USER5> Amazon still shouldn't have received that patent, as it nothing they came up with. And its not beneficial for society for them to have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The knitting machine was denied a patent by the Queen of England because the invention was too good, and she was worried it would put the entire class of knitting women out of work. "Thou aimest high, Master Lee. Consider thou what the invention could do to my poor subjects. It would assuredly bring to them ruin by depriving them of employment, thus making them beggars." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_(inventor)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lee_\(inventor\))</comment>


Ask HN:  Turning novel reading into an action game.  Is this new? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea for how this could be done but I was wondering if others have built games like this to motivate people to read novels. <comment><USER2> That's a pretty vague question you're probably thinking more about technology but the first thing that comes to mind is:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure>

<comment><AUTHOR> The game I have in mind would work with traditional novels.</comment></comment>


Show HN: React-atom – reagent.cljs atoms for react.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/derrickbeining/react-atom <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN frequenters! I like how simple `atom`s are to work with in reagent.cljs (compared to redux), but I mostly use JavaScript at work. Until recently, there didn't seem to be a good way to implement them for react without wrapping react entirely like reagent does. But the new Hooks API proposal exposes some bits that make reagent-like atoms possible! So here they are. I'd love feedback on the idea and the implementation. There are links in the GitHub README to play with a pre-made IDE/project on CodeSandbox.io if you like!</comment>


Kubernetes App Customization with kubectl and Kustomize - <AUTHOR> https://kubectl.docs.kubernetes.io/pages/app_customization/introduction.html <comment><AUTHOR> There's been a lot of discussion around Kustomize recently. I've found the new official documentation on kubectl extremely helpful and pragmatic. It goes over kubectl features by use case and presents different strategies for different engineering teams to manage Kubernetes workloads in a way that works for them. (i.e., monorepo vs many repos, team size, etc)

Unfortunately, as it is so new, it's not showing up in top search results in popular search engines.</comment>


What Google Images would have looked like in the 80s - <AUTHOR> http://www.masswerk.at/googleBBS/images/

<comment><USER2> haha, that is awesome. :D I expected just an image or video but it actually works, that's pretty cool. I love how they did the google logo too. Though for the average image results, that 'text art' is a bit of a poor representation... and understandably so.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Do you remember the internet at this speed?_

 _Up all night and you 'd see eight women._

<http://tviv.org/The_IT_Crowd_(UK)/50/50>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is the only cool thing.

All formerly cool things are urged to return to their homes and resume the lives they led in the before-time.</comment>


Working in the open wild (open-source project) - <AUTHOR> https://solidgeargroup.com/working-in-the-open-wild <comment><USER2> Sounds great to be working in a project like that, with a community colaborating

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting how people develop software without expecting any in return</comment>


Despite the Hype, VR Isn't Viable - <AUTHOR> http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-Reality-of-Virtual-Reality-Despite-the-Hype-VR-Isnt-Viable-120964.aspx <comment><USER2> This is about VR video, not VR games, or other VR apps.</comment>


AngelList's Newest Experiment: a $25M Fund to Invest in Angel Investors - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/15/angellistss-newest-experiment-a-25-million-fund-to-invest-in-angel-investors/ <comment><USER2> This is basically saying, "Let's package together a bunch of volatile high- risk, high-return investments in a completely unregulated market and sell that to people".

Seems like Silicon Valley financiers are beginning to think like Wall Streeters.

<comment><USER3> This isn't Joe Random they're selling to, they're selling to institutional investors who are sophisticated buyers.

There are plenty of people who fully understand the risks involved who want to engage in high-risk high-return investment (especially ones where the risk profile is significantly different from their other investments to provide hedging).

There are risks with this model (for example there may be less due diligence then you traditionally get with VCs) but the overall risk model probably isn't hugely different from a seed stage fund.

<comment><USER4> Joe Random wasn't buying Wall Street's CDOs either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting name for the fund. Maiden Lane LLC was the bailout vehicle created by the Federal Reserve during the credit crisis, named after the street address of the NY Fed.

<comment><USER6> AngelList's office was/is on Maiden Lane in San Francisco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At this rate we should be expecting a Troubled Angel Relief Program in 2-3 years.

</comment><comment><USER8> Okay, now this is becoming like the hedge fund industry of 2008, first there was hedge funds, then fund of hedge funds, then fund of funds!

<comment><USER9> To iterate is human, to recurse is divine

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How very meta.

It'll get _really_ interesting when someone creates a derivatives fund on angel investing performance.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's like reinventing multi-level marketing one level at a time.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting variation on the sidecar concept. It makes sense to look for ways to leverage the efforts of skilled angel/pre-seed investors.

These high-skill investors often add significant value through mentoring, introductions, and so on. Anything that encourages that and gives them more ability to do that is a very good thing in my view.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting the focus of AngelList continues towards the investors...last year it was syndicates and now a funds of funds. Before it was focused on the Startups/entrepreneurs...deal flow/recruiting/accelerators...have they completely tapped out the opportunity to help the entrepreneur? I don't think so...

</comment><comment><USER14> This is an innovation that is great for entrepreneurs. AngelList is certainly thinking out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think we need another derivative on that, can I invest in people who invest in angel investors?

</comment><comment><USER16> Awesome, got to love High Risk Mutual Funds. This seems like the right way to go, because most don't have the time to research startups.

</comment><comment><USER17> So it is a fund of fund of funds?

</comment><comment><USER18> So... venture capital? The difference between angels and VC is that angels are investing their own money and VCs are general partners investing on behalf of their limited partners (investors). Not a new experiment at all, it's just smaller scale VC.

<comment><USER19> No management fees, angels invest their own money alongside, no 10-year lockup, enter / leave with one click, track everything online, and have 40 angels invest $25M instead of 2 VC Partners. But yes, other than that, there's nothing new here.</comment></comment>


Lwan is a high-performance and scalable web server for glibc/Linux platforms - <AUTHOR> http://lwan.ws

<comment><USER2> This is sort of one of those projects I point out on how not to program c, it violates c standards as well as gratuitously using unportable apis.

<comment><USER3> As the author, I would really appreciate if you could elaborate on this comment.

I'm genuinely curious, because it's the first time I hear someone saying it's poorly written to the point that it's used as an example of how not to write in C. In fact, I often hear the opposite from people that are way more skilled in C than I am.

I care a lot about code quality, both performance- and readability-wise; so much so that I regularly check the code with static analyzers, ubsan, build the project using two different compilers with a bunch of warnings turned on, and, of course, I'm always refactoring stuff so it's more readable.

If you could help me understand better what you mean specifically about "it violates C standards", I can keep improving the project.

In time, "gratuitously using unportable APIs" isn't really a fact. There are some uses here and there of unportable APIs (such as epoll, maybe a call or two to some pthread_*_np() function), but I believe it's better to support something I know inside out than a platform I have no familiarity with. Maybe "gratuitously" could be removed from that affirmation. Also, I follow the OpenSSH idea of portability, which seems to work pretty well for them: [http://www.openbsd.org/papers/portability.ps](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/portability.ps)

<comment><USER2> Any type with a suffix _t is reserved as per POSIX but nobody really follows this so I can't blame you.

Use of glibc specifics, from what I saw last time it was things like rawmemchr in place of strlen which if you look at the generated asm rawmemchr is worse and glibc specific.I would use perf and see what the bottlenecks were I doubt its strlen or even the non portable pthread np api.

The use of __linux__ when you meant __GLIBC__, you shouldn't assume Linux == glibc either. I think you removed all that though.

I'll look over it again tonight.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How have you been after you quit your PhD? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I know many, many people who do not finish their doctorate and they are all doing very well. Do not work on a PhD if you aren't enjoying it.

A PhD is not just a few classes. It is a deep apprenticeship to a noted expert in a field. Unlike most graduate degrees which have 96+% graduation rates, PhD finishing rates are very low.

I'll admit any PhD has its ebs and flows. There were many hard years during my studies. But overall, it simply is not worth 5+ years of your life to pursue something that you do not love to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> I never started, but I did drop out from my masters in mathematics with just enough credits sans a thesis. I'll say for my case it was fortuitous as I exploited every opportunity I had to the fullest.</comment>


How the North Korean hackers (WannaCry) got away with a stunning crypto-heist - La-ang https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615093/lazarus-group-dragonex-chainalysis/ <comment> La-ang Hit Esc before Scripts load asking you for a subscription :)</comment>


Kakao acquires top Korean music streaming service for $1.5B - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/kakao-korea-melon-music-streaming-acquisition <comment><USER2> "Acquiring [MelOn parent company] Loen gives Kakao a massive music content library as well as a pipeline for future content. [The app's] current businesses are built around K-pop and domestic artists, and they will continue to build on their success."

Being a heavy supplier of K-Pop is probably very strategic. K-Pop appears to be a valuable cultural export, and I imagine domestically it holds up quite well too.

Here are some links related to global interest in Korean culture and pop culture:

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Wave)

\- [http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21611039-how- re...](http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21611039-how-really- uncool-country-became-tastemaker-asia-soap-sparkle-and-pop)

\- [http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail- marketing/how-...](http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail- marketing/how-korea-became-the-worlds-coolest-brand)

Just musing...</comment>


A Month Without Sugar - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/a-month-without-sugar.html <comment><USER3> > There were certainly times when I didn't enjoy the experience. I missed ice > cream, chocolate squares, Chinese restaurants and cocktails. But I also knew > that I'd get to enjoy them all again.

> The unpleasant parts of a month without sugar are temporary, and they're > tolerable. Some of the benefits continue long after the month is over. If > you try it and your experience is anything like mine, I predict that your > new normal will feel healthier and no less enjoyable than the old.

This is the extent of the results. NONE of the benefits, expected or experienced are discussed!

The rest is just telling you what to avoid and what to eat. The sugar naturally occurring in fruit, vegetables and dairy are allowed. Author also claims that you can't eat things that have 0g sugar listed because that just means less than 0.5g. You have to read every ingredient for -ose, honey, sugar, agave, etc. That seems a bit ridiculous if you are allowing fructose from an apple (~19g).

Reduce sugar in favor of grain and calorie balance among fat, carb, protein with reduced total intake is generally good. Diets like these are replacing one extreme with another.

<comment><USER4> The author identifies "resetting sugar-addled taste buds" and becoming mindful of how many foods have added sugar as benefits. Having gone without sugar for a month, I can affirm that both of these things were true. And, of course, willing abstinence from certain foods is a part of many spiritual traditions.

Given that the author is suggesting that interested people undertake this as a month long exercise, and only claims to have undertaken this exercise twice, it is not clear why you are characterizing this as an extreme diet.

<comment><USER5> The resetting the taste buds effect is _amazing_. Several months ago, I started trimming back my sugar intake, with a goal of putting almost none of it in food I make myself, and generally avoiding dessert-type items.

What I've found is that restaurant food _all_ tastes _incredibly sweet_. All of it. There has to be so much sugar they're putting in food, and I just used to be used to eating that much.

Getting a chai-type beverage, if they add sweetener at all, it's wayyyyyy too much. I've started requesting no sweetener in my chais, and that now tastes normal to me.

I still eat fruit, but no more than one piece a day. Even a whole apple often feels like a little too much sweet for me.

The biggest take-away I have from all this is just how easy it is to get accustomed to foods, one way or another.

The biggest benefit has been weight loss and having my energy throughout the day feel almost totally steady and even now. Even when I get hungry, it's a sensation I can mostly delay gratification of, where I used to get crazy and distracted from hunger.

<comment><USER6> A lot of Europeans have this reaction on coming to the US, that all the food is way too sweet.

<comment><USER7> Coming back to the US for a conference a few years ago we got some "fresh lemonade" type drinks at the San Francisco airport. They were so sweet they made my teeth hurt, I couldn't have more than a sip. I had a hard time believing people drink this stuff on a regular basis, but there were lots of people in the store drinking larger cups of what looked like the same drink!

<comment><USER8> Drinks like lemonade in the US are bad :( I just drink unsweetened ice tea most of the time, almost everything else you get from restaurants/fast food outlets would be way over-sweetened. Fortunately more and more place started having unsweetened ice tea. There are other drinks that can be made with minimal or no sugar but it's hit-or-miss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Better than "without sugar", I recommend avoiding foods with fiber removed, which includes sugar, also white flour, corn syrup, fruit juices, and most aisles of the supermarket. At least I found it better.

It forces you to a lot more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Plus it doesn't feel like an arbitrary division. Looking back, it seems weird to take fiber out of food. It makes things taste sweeter and extends their shelf lives, but at the cost of complexity of flavor, texture, and nutritional value.

Since avoiding foods with fiber removed, my diet has become more varied, fresh, cheaper, more delicious, and I eat more food. The biggest surprise was that stopping using olive oil, which I had allowed at first, felt natural and I don't miss it. As a result, I eat to stuffed almost every meal.

At 45, my ab definition started coming in after the change for the first time, despite my eating _more_ food.

<comment><USER10> Olive oil though, has quite a lot of health benefits. Its only downside is the calories from it.

<comment><USER11> > _Its only downside is the calories from it._

How is that a downside? Deriving calories (and nutrients) from food is the entire purpose of eating.

<comment><USER12> Or put another way: it is calorie dense. Very easy to overconsume calorie dense foods. If most of your calories came from them, you would miss the chewing you are used to.

<comment><USER13> Consuming fat makes you feel full. Like many people, I find that eating a higher-fat diet makes me feel full & able to tolerate eating fewer calories overall.

<comment><USER12> Sure. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware of the calorie density of all of your food. 100 calories of olive oil looks very different from 10o calories of carrots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've done 4 months without sugar in any form (added or even fruit). I've lost almost 40 lbs, I feel great, I'm about the weight I was in HS (I'm middle aged).

And even though I'm vegetarian and accustomed to being the weird one as far as food as concerned, not eating any sugar in any form really is exceptionally isolating. Any diet will have you feeling left out, but man. Sugar is a bitch.

<comment><USER15> I find it helpful to hear success stories like yours. I'm obese, and I need to correct that. I believe sugar is one of the primary culprits. I'm going to attempt again to remove sugar from my diet for a month. I removed sugar from my diet for a couple weeks, and the weight loss results were very satisfying.

It is a hard diet to do though. I found that eating out was very tricky, and that shopping at the grocery store was also challenging. It required meal planning, and just thinking of most food in the grocery store as non-edible.

There are good documentaries, books, etc. on why sugar is so bad for us. I really enjoyed the documentary ["Fed Up"]([http://fedupmovie.com](http://fedupmovie.com)).

<comment><USER16> Sugar is definitely a culprit, but really, it's all about calories in v calories out. Eliminating large amounts of processed sugar will help as the calories can quickly add up and you'll experience a big insulin spike afterward, but if you just moderate, keep most of your food healthy, and stay at a caloric deficit, you'll lose weight.

Extreme diets (i.e., 'eliminate X completely') tend to fail because they're hard to sustain.

<comment><USER17> > _…really, it 's all about calories in v calories out._

In the absolute sense, you're absolutely right. But in my experience sugar tends to stoke a desire for more, in which case the form calories take is a crucial factor for success.

(Caveats: I know what works for me but couldn't tell you how much of the effects of eating sugar are physiological vs. emotional, etc.)

[EDIT: Typo]

<comment><USER16> Yeah, same for me. If I currently out late night sweets completely I lose the desire for them pretty quickly. Whatever works for you is always best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find the whole idea hard to understand. Coming from a family with diabetics I grew up knowing the effects of sugar on health and been avoiding it. I do eat fruit just not a lot, unsweetened dark chocolate (a couple of squares a week maybe) and occasionally try cakes but I restrict myself to a couple of teaspoons. I try to buy bread that contains no sugar but if I am eating out I don't get picky about it. I don't feel like I'm missing something and I find it weird when I see people downing cakes, energy drinks, jams, juices etc. To me avoiding sugar doesn't feel like something I need to think about, it feels normal. I can't be alone I'm sure there's others doing the same. Where I'm getting at is that your sugar intake is affected by the environment you were brought up and its something one can change. It's not a compromise.

<comment><USER19> > _To me avoiding sugar doesn 't feel like something I need to think about, it > feels normal._

Only because, as you say, you "come from a family with diabetics". Not exactly the most common experience growing up (even if there are many diabetics, there are less that know it, and even fewer than do something about it -- statistics I've seen say there are about 9% diabetics, of which about 25% is undiagnosed).

So, I don't understand what you find "hard to understand". That most people don't share the same experience?

<comment><USER18> I find hard to understand why it feels so hard to avoid eating sugary food.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since a few years ago I reduced my sugar intake by quitting certain types of drinks and meals. The biggest impact was when I cut out soda, which ended up giving me a huge energy boost.

American foods are just way too sugary. I traveled to Japan a few years back and was amazed by how little sugar some of their candies have. After spending two weeks there, when I came back home I was a bit shocked at how overwhelming most foods felt.

I can't speak for any alleged health benefits, but my personal strategy is to regularly cut down on certain foods every few months. That gives you a chance to sorta reset your taste buds, so when you come back to a type of food it's almost as if you're tasting it for the first time. I don't know if it's just a placebo effect or if there's a scientific explanation behind it, but I find it enjoyable, so I'd suggest others give this sort of harmless experimenting a try.

</comment><comment><USER21> On the subject of sugar, there is a review of Gary Taubes' new book "The Case Against Sugar" in the Atlantic: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/the- sug...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/the-sugar- wars/508751/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Many years ago I remember reading a syndicated health column in the newspaper by Dr. Peter Gott, and at the end of many of his columns he advertised his "No Sugar, No Flour" diet book. Turns out it's still for sale to this day - [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/peter-h-gott- md/dr-...](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/peter-h-gott-md/dr-gotts- no-flour-no-sugartm-diet/9780446511094/)

It's a simple way to avoid sugar and flour in your diet, therefore removing a lot of carbohydrates and therefore calories. A few years ago I tried it (with the addition of no dairy, as that was how I remembered it), and I lost 30lbs in 3 months.

Of course, like any diet if, you don't permanently change your lifestyle you will gain the weight back, and as I one-by-one started back with the bread and sweet foods and snacks, it all came back.

</comment><comment><USER23> I went three months without sugar while dieting. That ended at a birthday party, where I had a tiny piece of chocolate cake. The cake immediately made me ill. I started sweating and became dizzy. After that I was convinced that sugar is awful for our bodies.

<comment><USER24> Honestly, I've heard similar effects from just about everyone whose avoided any category of food for an extended time and then reintroduced a food that was in the avoided category (whether it's meat, sugar, or any of a number of other things.)

The effect you describe may be more a sign that eating things the body isn't prepared for are disruptive, rather than the harmfulness of the particular avoided food. (Even where the avoided food actually _is_ harmful.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you consider this, make sure to consider whether or not you think you may be self-medicating with sweets. I quit sugar for about 2 months and went into an inexplicable depression where I was having suicidal thoughts. Sugar is a bastard. As others said the benefits of resetting the taste buds were pretty incredible. Black coffee instead of sugarcoated Starbucks is actually enjoyable to me now.

<comment><USER26> _" I quit sugar for about 2 months and went into an inexplicable depression"_

I wonder if tapering down sugar consumption gradually instead of abruptly quitting would lessen this effect by giving the brain time to adjust? It might be similar to how people need to taper down their dosage of Prozac rather than just stopping it.

<comment><USER27> Exactly. Mind you that's probably only because I didn't realize I used it to psychologically self-medicate. Most people would probably be well served if they cut it off cold-turkey, others may need a step down approach like me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cutting out 95% of sugar is easy. Cutting out 100% is really fkin hard and not worth it in my opinion.

<comment><USER29> Don't focus on cutting out sugar. Focus on eating more protein and nutrients (target specific vegetables), and leave carbs and fats as filler - as a waste of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The links and wording of this article makes me feel like I'm reading an ad.

> When I needed a midday treat, a Honeycrisp apple, a few Trader Joe's > apricots or a snack bar that fit the no-sugar saved me.

Why not just "apricots"? Why does it have to be Trader Joe's apricots?

<comment><USER19> > _Why does it have to be Trader Joe 's apricots?_

Probably because the author doesn't have a Whole Foods nearby, and the kind of people that get to write for NYT always want to tell us where they shop their organic stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _I now know which brands of chicken stock, bacon, smoked salmon, mustard and > hot sauce contain added sugar and which do not._

Sriracha: why do so many people like it?

It's 20% sugar. No wonder.

Here's the label: [http://joshuaspodek.com/why-sriracha-hot-sauce- tast](http://joshuaspodek.com/why-sriracha-hot-sauce-tast)

<comment><USER31> The green-topped bottle in the linked piece is 20g sugar per 100g, but I've seen some in the UK that are 25g or even 30g. I don't eat the stuff myself, but know a lot of people who do and they often put on quite a lot -- definitely more than 1/96th of a bottle serving.

<comment><USER32> If you like the taste of Sriracha, buy the same brand's "Chili Garlic Sauce". Same flavor without the sugar. See:

[https://www.amazon.com/Huy-Fong-Chili-Garlic- Sauce/dp/B0016L...](https://www.amazon.com/Huy-Fong-Chili-Garlic- Sauce/dp/B0016L34GO)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have been following the low/no sugar approach for a coupe of years. Some results (some may/may not be directly attributable just to low sugar)

1) Most restaurant foods, even the savory section, have an undercurrent of sweetness that is almost overpowering

2) I cannot eat any commercial cakes/cookies even on very special occasions, the sweetness makes you gag

3) No more post lunch slump - this one was surprising to me

4) Birthdays/Anniversaries are awkward during the "food time"

5) No colas/juice/shakes/smoothies; yes to Coffee,tea,lime water with honey or just Water - I started to have spare change much more often so now i invest in the occasional top shelf vodka :)

6) Dropped about 6 Pounds in the first six months

7) Less jittery-ness thru the day

All-in-all positive effects with some social awkwardness

<comment><USER34> Ways I successfully avoid the social awkwardness you mentioned:

1) If present with an SO, say you are sharing theirs.

2) Take the proffered sugar, make eating-cadence motions with the spoon/fork but instead of eating, mash it a bit. After a few times, hard to tell at a glance whether or not someone has eaten it. Discreetly set down, walk away.

3) Or do the more advanced version, when you realize rarely does someone really observe _and care_ that you eat a food, and being seen in the give-and- take transaction with you is far more socially significant: take, dab with utensil, discard.

4) Decline with a wry "doctor's orders". YMMV, might be accompanied by increased risk of one-sided conversation over health issues, especially if giver is elderly relation with lots of such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think the US would benefit from better labeling of food.

Here is a comparison of EU vs. US labels: [https://www.foodlabels.com/nutritionfacts- examples-5.htm](https://www.foodlabels.com/nutritionfacts-examples-5.htm)

Some differences:

\- sodium vs. salt

\- 'per serving' vs. per 100g (in the US candy is often specified as multiple servings per container, deflating the numbers)

\- fiber included under carbohydrates

(granted, there are issues with EU labeling too, but I think it has some advantages)

<comment><USER36> The "of which" lines on the EU version are particularly weird - <USER2> indentation like on the US version is more readable.

On a tangent, here in Australia, goods in supermarkets now have to have their prices also listed in 'per 100g' (or per volume). It makes price comparison _much_ easier, and no longer are you trying to figure out what the breakdown is for a 527ml bottle of Foo Cleaner against it's 483ml competitor.

<comment><USER37> In the EU version, it's quite easy to find the "sugars" line, which directly gives you the percentage of sugars in the product. This makes it really easy to compare products by sugar content. If that's what you're looking to do, it doesn't matter much that sugars are (or are not) grouped under carbs.

<comment><USER19> Just don't put that much confidence in what those labels say:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE2lna5Wxuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE2lna5Wxuo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Cutting out sugar to the level described in the article and expecting a long list of health benefits is just as extreme as diets from the low fat craze were 20-30 years ago. It amazes me that this kind of misinformation continues to thrive.

<comment><USER39> Whatever happened to just eat less, exercise often?

Oh that's right, it's so simple that no one believes it works.

<comment><USER36> 'eat less' is not the same as 'eating a balanced diet'. There's plenty of people out there who eat a small but terrible diet. I knew a guy in IT once who lived on a diet of basically chips and Coke. He was rail-thin, but his doctor diagnosed him with scurvy (!)

<comment><USER39> Well, I am assuming people eat normal food. Like, you know, bread, cheese, eggs, meat, tomatoes and potatoes... Who the hell lives on chips and Coke...

<comment><USER40> "Who the hell lives on chips and Coke.."

Half the developed world it seems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Giving up sugar, junk food, and refined carbohydrates is not particularly difficult. It requires some effort and minimal self control.

You will definitely feel a lot better if you avoid sugar and carbs, and probably lose weight too.

<comment><USER15> I don't know about "not particularly difficult". Eating out is really tricky, so it is best to assume you can't eat out. Finding groceries that don't have added sugar is also tricky. I guess you can get into a routine of what foods you know are safe to eat. I don't think it is a very easy diet. I do think it is a very healthy and effective diet though.

<comment><USER41> Eating out is fine, stick to restaurants and choose healthier meals and always avoid pizza joints, buffets, and fast food.

> Finding groceries that don't have added sugar is also tricky

Also easy to avoid: if it isn't fresh from a plant or animal, you probably shouldn't eat it. Or at least eat much less of it and be discerning about what's in it and where you buy it from.

You can generally assume that if something is refined, processed, or often even packaged, it likely has added junk you really should not be eating.

<comment><USER15> The problem with eating out is often you don't know what ingredients they are using. Does the bread they use have added sugar. Is the dressing on that salad full of sugar? There are so many unknowns with eating out, that it is not easy to avoid sugar when eating out. Generally speaking, food that you did not make, is going to likely have unwanted sugars.

Buying fresh is not exactly easy because that means going to the grocery store every day or thereabouts. I'm not going to argue that buying and eating fresh food isn't better for you, but it is certainly not easier.

It takes some practice to find the foods that work for you that don't have added sugar. It does get easier, but I would not say it is an easy diet considering how much food you need to avoid.

<comment><USER42> No, you don't have to go to the grocery store every day. Most fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, and meat will keep a week or more in a refrigerator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I did something similar last year and quitting sugar cold turkey was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. I documented my experiences over each of the four weeks: [http://avadhutp.github.io/no-sugar- challenge-week-1-update/](http://avadhutp.github.io/no-sugar-challenge- week-1-update/)

</comment><comment><USER44> If you do this --- and it's a good idea, as anyone who has done the "keto" thing can probably attest (it really does persistently alter your habits), you should probably cut out beer too.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm not sure what to make of this article , the author states:

>"I have done so in each of the last two years, and it has led to permanent changes in my eating habits. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it."

But then also states:

>"There were certainly times when I didn't enjoy the experience. I missed ice cream, chocolate squares, Chinese restaurants and cocktails. But I also knew that I'd get to enjoy them all again."

What happened to the permanent changes in easting habits mentioned in the first passage? Is this a "yo-yo diet" then?

I also found this puzzling:

>"I now know which brands of chicken stock, bacon, smoked salmon, mustard and hot sauce contain added sugar and which do not."

Why can't the same awareness be achieved by simply reading the nutritional summary posted on the back of all food items before putting them in your cart or basket while grocery shopping?

<comment><USER46> > Why can't the same awareness be achieved by simply reading the nutritional > summary posted on the back of all food items before putting them in your > cart or basket while grocery shopping?

It can be, and I've done so, but I can see that some people may benefit from focussing on the issue intensely for a month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I've tried cutting sugar, and various other diets before, but they all got to be too time consuming and irritating for me. What did work for me was simply tracking my calories using Under Armour's My Fitness Pal website. The site is easy to use, and I quickly discovered that drinking a soda and eating a bag of chips left me starving at the end of the day, whereas eating grains and vegetables didn't. Just by counting calories, I naturally gravitated to healthier foods. I lost about 45 pounds too.

I'm not trying to diminish anything the author said. I think eating healthier foods is a worthy goal. I only share my experience in case others, like me, find adhering to prescribed diets and digging through ingredient lists too difficult, and want something a bit easier.

<comment><USER29> I used the MyFitnessPal app before Under Armour bought them. It was a great way to learn how many calories each food is really composed from. But the downside was seeing that "I have a few hundred calories left" at the end of a day, almost like it was encouraging me to snack, making me hungry when I wasn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I used to do various ketogenic like diets as well as avoiding eating sugar (except after working out) and nothing so far has worked better than Intermittent Fasting (i.e. Only eating with in a small window time wise of a day).

I would have tried it sooner but it seemed so contrarian to traditional dieting.

</comment><comment><USER49> I did this for a whole year - Oct 2015 to Oct 2016. Cold turkey like the author.

It's nothing extraordinary. Or at least nothing as challenging as launching a startup. It's all about willpower and willing to do the extra work. I found only eating what you cook, and sticking to whole natural foods (un-processed) makes this extremely easy.

I didn't manage a total of three or four times. Those were social events: a wedding, a birthday, and during a trip to another another country.

In terms of benefits, you lose quickly a lot of weight, and perhaps a bit more energy during the day. Overall a very interesting experience. I would say thought that if you're looking for a healther lifestyle, committing to regular moderate or intense exercise has a better ROI than cutting sugar.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm really confused on including Honey in the list unless we are talking about processed honey or something like that. Is it so common in the US that the honey you buy is processed and not raw?

</comment><comment><USER51> > I missed ice cream, chocolate squares, Chinese restaurants and cocktails.

I'm a bit mystified how "Chinese restaurants" fits in to this list -- could someone explain? Did the author at some other point in time give up Chinese food for a month, or is he suggesting that Chinese food all has added sugar? (Personally, I can think of only a few Chinese dishes that typically have sugar added, and it's maybe a tablespoon at most for a dish that would serve 2-4 people.)

<comment><USER52> A lot of American Chinese restaurant food has sugary sauces.

<comment><USER51> News to me. I guess he means Panda Express or something like that. Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Sugar is really not needed in the human diet and is in fact harmful. Its also highly addictive and is the reason for metabolic syndrome, which is a range of illnesses like diabetes, certain cancers, dementia, stroke, heart disease, hypertension some have even made a link to Alzheimer's. If you were to do one good thing for yourself or your family cut way back on sugars and High Glycemic Carbohydrates. This is not my opinion this is well known scientific fact

<comment><USER40> Type 2 diabetes, type 1 has different origins.

<comment><USER53> Diet is as important for type 1 as it is for type 2 diabetes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> After suffering from digestive and autoimmune issues since adolescence, and having a very difficult 2015 (in and out of hospitals), I took the bold step of drastically altering my diet. I've been sugar free, grain free, soy free, alcohol free and dairy free (save for soft goat cheese and Greek yogurt) for 1.5 yrs now. It wasn't an easy adjustment to make, but I was at rock bottom. The improvement has been dramatic and life altering.

</comment><comment><USER55> Around the age of 13, the lazy side of me figured out that in life you can actually gain something by not doing something else. This was the day when I decided I wouldn't touch the alcohol or cigarettes (not to mention soft and hard drugs). Ever. I've tried alcohol since then maybe two times actually and I've never been drunk, never tried to smoke, I don't even drink coffee (just don't like the taste of it).

Anyway, it took me 27 years to realise I've been addicted to sugar the whole time. I dropped refined sugar from my diet last February, I'd say I'm quite strict here as I've ate sugar only two times in these 11 months (one traditional Christmas Eve dish and one for Easter). Maybe a few times more when I wasn't sure what I was eating (eating out).

My sugar problems became really obvious when I was super strict about my oral hygiene yet I was spending thousands of dollars yearly on dentists. I was getting a few cavities filled yearly for the last 10 years or so. It seemed normal to me but the red flag was a cavity between my incisors, it was tiny, I couldn't even see it but every time I ate something with refined sugar I felt this particular type of pain you got when you have a cavity in your teeth. I could barely feel it with any other food, but sugars - hell yea, it was just simply painful. And then I got scared and thinking "damn, I'm 27 and I've already had root canal treatment once - and now this?". I've been reading a lot about people who have super healthy teeth because they don't eat that much sugar (or no refined sugars at all) and somehow without sugar tooth decay is processing very slowly if at all.

During the last 11 months I've seen my dentist twice and looks like if I will keep sugar out of my diet I'd just have to replace my fillings every few years or so. No new cavities, no signs of teeth decay, I feel like a new man.

What's even better I'm reading ALL the product labels before I eat anything now and I'm generally MUCH better because I've dropped refined/palm oils too. I'm living in Poland and our food is dirt cheap and of superb quality, anyway it really opened my eyes in many cases, when I was for example looking for sausages and about 50% had sugar in them, when and why the heck we decided to put sugar in our meat?! :( Same goes for bread and so much processed food you'd be surprised.

(if you're planning of dropping sugar it won't be easy - the first 3 weeks were nightmare for me, but I got by eating sweets sweetened with sorbitol, aspartam etc. - after that it was just like a walk in the park - I don't even miss Nutella sandwiches I used to eat every morning - try oatmeal with nuts and honey or in the worst case - mascarpone sandwiches with some honey on top of it - delicious :D)

<comment><USER56> Coffee is so weird, because people just become dependent on it, and start talking about how they "need their coffee" in the morning before they can function. It just seems to reset back to the original state, except now you need to spend money on coffee and your teeth are stained. Just sleep more and exercise.

<comment><USER55> Exactly.

What's worth adding here is I generally have huge logical problem with the whole "acquired taste" thing, I mean if something tastes like crap (I'm referring to coffee, alcohol, marmite etc.) why would ANYONE want to acquire the taste? What's the point of it? When I don't like something I just simply try it once, maybe twice and then I'm like "no, thank you, it's gross".

I used to think I'm beginning to like coffee because I really liked coffee cakes or Kopikos (not sure if you have them in the US), but once you realise these things are 60-80% SUGAR (!) then it's not the coffee you like in it at all, you most likely just carve sugar.

<comment><USER57> I don't drink coffee, so this is not a defense of coffee, just a reply to your comments about "acquired taste".

Your taste buds and your palate gets used to certain food, so the food you think is delicious is largely impacted by your acquired taste.

You're really missing out _a lot_ with food given your attitude to acquired taste. You don't get to not have acquired taste, everyone has it, it's just a function of the food you keep eating, usually to do with where you're from.

There's a definite plus in acquiring certain tastes, because it'll open up whole new worlds of food & drink for you that you can't believe you previously did without. Examples include: Spicy food, fermented food, dried beef/fish/whatever, heavily fried foods, sweet, savory, stinky cheeses etc. etc.

Some things you really can't just try once. One good example is spicy food (containing capsaicin). Where I grew up there was none of that at all, but as an adult I made a concerted effort to try to wean myself on it because there had to be something to it if so many people were eating it. Today spiciness is one of my favorite food attributes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> There is a good movie about it: Fed Up

Made me watch my processed foods, and especially sugar intake.

Still think balanced diet and exercise are a very good idea

<comment><USER59> I learned about that documentary thanks to a previous HN thread. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. The amount of sugar added to many processed foods is insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I find my taste buds adjust after a period of time, I also look for products that are my favourite foods only sweetened with stevia. I found one healthy candy called SmartSweets, gummy bears only using stevia that are natural and they've really helped me.

</comment><comment><USER61> If you think there's a chance your blood sugar might be high, you can get an A1C test kit at the pharmacy or grocery store or Amazon (or visit your doctor, of course). That tests your average blood sugar level over the past 3 months or so.

</comment><comment><USER62> Another year, another demon food. It seems every few years we switch it up, now it's sugar, before it was glutten, then it was fats, then it was carbs. It seems like nobody really has a clue what is "good" for us. The only thing that makes sense to me anymore is eating a balanced diet from a variety of food sources while also maintaining a decent exercise regimen. Not over doing it, frequently, is also an important aspect. I've found it's OK to eat junk food once in awhile, as long it's not a habit.

<comment><USER63> Could not agree w/ this comment more. Writing a New York Times article suggesting people count calories, weigh their food, and exercise 3-5 times per week is boring and doesn't sell. The public is dying for a guru w/ a new methodology or academia to emerge w/ a new "scientific breakthrough" to save them from the obesity epidemic. The answer is simple but yet so many people refuse to believe eating less calories than their body needs is the cornerstone to weight loss.

<comment><USER64> A couple of years ago, in a show of solidarity with my wife, I did a Whole 30. It's a 30 day elimination diet that cuts out all sugar (except for naturally occurring in whole fruit). I'm in my thirties and very slim.

The Whole 30 lets you have as much fat, meat and calories as you want. I plowed through eggs, homemade mayo, meat, and other calorie dense food. I'm skinny enough that I don't have much weight to lose. Even so, I dropped ten pounds effortlessly.

I don't know if this generalizes to other people and their physiques, but it was enough to convince me that sugar/simple carbs really do correlate more directly to my waistline than just counting calories does. I'm sure what the right metric to pay attention to is. My hunch is that it's glycemic load.

Either way, I cut down on my sugar and carbs since then, and I've lost of a lot of the middle-aged Dad belly I was starting to develop. I don't count calories at all. It seems to work for me.

<comment><USER56> If you didn't count your calories, there's no way to tell where you were eating relative to your TDEE. People think they're eating more than they are all the time, it's an incredibly common thread on any fitness forum.

<comment><USER65> Isn't that still a point in favor of the diet, though? That it's much harder to overeat on it?

<comment><USER56> Of course, but it's pretty well accepted that fibrous and fatty foods are typically more filling that sugary foods, with fewer calories (especially for fibrous foods). It doesn't invalidate intake with respect to TDEE being the primary cause of weight gain and loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I do not know what is so difficult about not eating sugar. If "without sugar" means no added artificial sweetener or added sugar (as according to this article) then I have not consumed sugar for many many years; the same goes for our ancestors, farmers, etc. I do not know if this is a case of crack-like addiction, or a case of "what is the point? you only live once, you should indulge in pleasures" either way it need not be difficult if you simply, as an example, substitute your candy for fruits (fruit cultivation is a far-cry from what it used to be, but I do not want to get into an argument about this)

Despite all of this, take it from me: The benefits are overrated

Ironically and amusingly enough, I was my happiest (and seemingly healthier) when I was a little boy running around all day outside eating candy or chocolate to my hearts content.

<comment><USER39> > Ironically and amusingly enough, I was my happiest (and seemingly healthier) > when I was a little boy running around all day outside eating candy or > chocolate to my hearts content.

That's a dangerous thought that everyone has. You were indeed happier and healthier, because you had a new body that could heal more faster, and your metabolism was through the roof.

After 25, wear and tear starts to become noticeable, metabolism slows down, physical damage heals slower, pain lingers for way longer, you get less endorphins.

But these days everything is over-sweetened, fucking bread is sweet as hell for some reason. So cutting down on sugar is more than just not putting it in your tea/coffee and not eating cookies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I did this when training for my first marathon - in the last 2 months I quit sugars completely, and it's totally anecdotal but my endurance improved significantly. Case in point: my training partner was a friend who had run cross country for 10 years beginning in high school. He was also faster than me for the entire year of training, up to the very last month when I finished the marathon 20 minutes(!) ahead of him.

</comment><comment><USER68> Lets get something straight. He did not avoid sugar. And no one should.

Food falls into 3 main categories: Carbs, proteins, fats.

Carbs fall into 2 categories, Sugars and Starches (which are just a chain of sugar molecules).

Yes, it is possible to survive for awhile on just protein and fat, but NO ONE should be doing that. Sugar is necessary and good for you.</comment>